


This is not the death promised to me

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Injury, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Prompt Fic, Shiro is seriously trying not to panic here, this is not nearly as dark as it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Shiro clears his throat, carefully considering his next words. “And who…I’m sorry -whoexactly did you murder?” A pause, tongue swiping over his lower lip during the interlude. “You didn’t really murder someone, right?”Keith reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck, then finally turns his gaze on Shiro. There’s hesitation sitting there on parted lips, and Shiro notes the way Keith’s eyes keep searching his face for something, never holding his own gaze but constantly roaming across his features like a man trying to discern the best route across an unstable landscape.Shiro knows uneasy when he sees it, and Keith is all but textbook.[Or one of many misadventures of@theprojectava's Kuro!]





	

**Author's Note:**

> So [@theprojectava](https://tmblr.co/mR-t8hQhcbS3CsiIxJMO9GQ) does this amazing series with Kuro/Dark!Shiro - who is basically a clone of Shiro in her verse - and there was this prompt list involving the line “Don’t judge me but I may have murdered someone.” And it was this idea that either Kuro or Keith might have said this to Shiro and I just couldn’t not do something with the idea because I was laughing so hard at all of this. Yes, I entertain myself on many levels.
> 
> But you can find her Kuro comics and images: [here](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com/post/158832788093/bonus-just-sketchy-because-i-am-a-lazy-human) and [here](https://theprojectava.tumblr.com/post/158638997638/bonus-the-adventures-of-kuro-oh-my-god-this), but her tumblr is full of questions and answers about him as well!

“Don’t judge me, but I may have murdered someone.”

Shiro has come to accept that there will be a lot of things he has no control over when it comes to life aboard the castle. Take for instance the kitchen – that territory is definitely forbidden to him, and even if he did have the desire to whip up something for himself in the dead of night, there wasn’t much to the castle’s pantries outside of green goo and more fortified and perfectly rationed green goo. 

And he has come to expect a certain amount of random nonsense, the sort that spins itself out from having a handful of the young and mostly brave traipsing about a former symbol of royalty with all the intergalactic trappings to intrigue a mind for years. 

He did not, however, ever think he would hear those words drop from Keith’s mouth while they were traveling – quite peacefully he might add which is something of a welcomed relief given more recent battles – through the quiet of space. But there they are, hanging in the air between them like some brilliant hummingbird of thought, beating its little wings furiously while waiting for resolution, and it’s put this strange trill into Shiro’s bloodstream. 

He thinks it might be the beginnings of panic.

“You may have _what_ , Keith?”

“I told you not to judge me.”

Keith is standing there in the doorway to his bedroom, arms crossed over his chest and his eyes finding every shadow in the room a far more appropriate fixation for his gaze than Shiro’s face. But he imagines the expression he’s wearing must be this odd mix of concern, horror and sheer disbelief. Because Keith is standing there so _casually_ , like he had just come here to inform Shiro that he thinks the Lions could use a good scrubbing after their last battle and not dropped a bomb’s worth of impending decimation upon him. 

Actually, if Shiro wants to be honest, Keith looks mildly pissed with that fine red gloss of a blush burning over his cheeks that hints at embarrassment lurking under it all. 

Maybe someone isn’t actually dead. He’s clinging to that hope like a cat to its ninth life.  


Shiro clears his throat, carefully considering his next words. “And who…I’m sorry - _who_ exactly did you murder?” A pause, tongue swiping over his lower lip during the interlude. “You didn’t really murder someone, right?”

Keith reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck, then finally turns his gaze on Shiro. There’s hesitation sitting there on parted lips, and Shiro notes the way Keith’s eyes keep searching his face for something, never holding his own gaze but constantly roaming across his features like a man trying to discern the best route across an unstable landscape.  


Shiro knows uneasy when he sees it, and Keith is all but textbook.

Finally, having found some scrap of whatever it was he had been looking for - “I nailed him pretty good.”

“ _Who_?”

Keith shifts his weight. “Kuro…”

A groan flees from Shiro’s throat as he runs a hand over his face. “You probably didn’t kill him then…”

“There was a lot of blood…”

“ _Blood_?” Shiro croaks out, incredulous. 

“And he wasn’t really moving when I left him.”

“You just left him - _where_?”

“My bedroom.”

“Why was he in your bedroom?”  


Silence cuts in hot at that, welding Keith’s lips shut. Shiro narrows his eyes at the figure lingering in his doorway, threatening commands though he hates having to assume that role, hates having to pull up authority when it comes to Keith, but sometimes…sometimes Keith just pushes the button and all but screams at him to use it. 

Only, Keith doesn’t give him the time. The opportunity is lost the moment he turns from the doorway and starts stalking back down the hall towards his bedroom, pulling Shiro in his wake like a lost ship. And Shiro still doesn’t know where to put his thoughts on that whole matter. On the one hand, Kuro had clearly done something to have Keith lash out at him. On the other hand – could Keith _really_ have killed him over the offense? 

And what sort of wound were they talking – a busted lip? A bruised temple? A Marmoran blade to the gut? 

Each possibility swirls about in his mind until it’s nothing but a black mix of trepidation, contingency planning, and that heavy urge to have more faith in Keith. And he wants to believe in him, that thought is as solid as truth within his mind. When Keith stills in the doorway to his bedroom, his mouth making a thin line of itself, Shiro feels the breath fall like a boulder from his lips, large and ominous, full of potential devastation. But when he pulls to a stop beside Keith and looks into the room, something in him wants to pour laughter out instead.

Only because Kuro is definitely still breathing, still very much alive. Though there is a decent amount of blood haloing his mouth, just not of the _soon to be dead_ quantity that had been filling up Shiro’s thoughts. 

“So, what did he do again?”

Keith stutter-steps beside him, weight shifting left then right then left again. Over and over.

“He may have…felt me up. I thought it was you at first because he just… _did it_. And he had a hand over my eyes, and it was. . .fuck, Shiro, I may have thought…” Keith sucks in a breath then, and Shiro almost hates the way he can practically taste the desire Keith had felt in that moment for him. “…but then I felt the claws when he dragged them over my stomach and I just…”

Pink is burning bright as a road flare across Keith’s cheeks.

“What are we going to do with him?”

Shiro is still staring down at the he-that-isn’t-him with this strange bit of _something_ constricting his heart. But his mind is oddly blank, just taking in the scene of Kuro breathing far too peacefully on the floor, with his lips vivid red and Shiro swears he’s got this quirk to his mouth that says Kuro regretted nothing, not even in his half-dead state. And that…that just …

“Shiro?”

A blink as he looks over at Keith. “Yes?”

“What are we going to do with him?” Keith repeats, a frown etching over his lips.

“Leave him.” Shiro’s voice has a cold flatness to it that surprises even himself when it hits the air. Has even shocked Keith who is looking at him with utter disbelief bright in his eyes. “Well, I mean…you didn’t actually murder him.”

Another pause as Shiro turns his attention back to the body on the floor, noting the way fingers twitch with the beginnings of reanimation. Lips pull into a smile, contested and tight. 

“Though, I might if he tries that again.”


End file.
